This collection of poetry compiled and edited by Lewis and Sharif opens with an introductory essay on the life and works of Marcus Bruce Christian. Spanning four decades, Christian wrote over two thousand poems and thousands of pages of historical scholarship on blacks in Louisiana. Between 1922 and 1942, some of Christians poetry appeared in Opportunity and Crisis magazines. But most of his poetry remained unpublished.

While affiliated with the Federal Writers project, Christian no longer wrote in isolation of other African American writers; he came into contact with his fellow writers. Among the distinguished group of writers that Christian met was Arna Bontemps, Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, and Margaret Walker. Unlike these writers, Christian was not interested in free verse as he wrote in rhymed, metered verse.

The fifty poems selected in this collection have been thematically grouped to allow the reader to capture the range of Christians talent as a poet. There are poems that consider the social role of the poet and others that consider the perverse effects Jim Crow has on the natural affections of men and women of different races. We, also, see poems on the role of Africa and blackness in world politics and humanity. The poem, the longest in the collection, expresses Christians vision of New Orleans as a multiracial society.

Literacy critics and creative writers have resurrected some of our finest writers. Henry Louis Gates research on Harriet Wilsons Our Nig comes to mind. This text was lost to the reading public for over a century, before Gates discovered its true significance. We cannot forget Eugene Redmond in seeing that Henry Dumas work reached a larger community, nor can we ignore the role of Alice Walker in revitalizing interest in the extraordinary life and work of Zora Neale Hurston.

We can now add the names of Rudolph Lewis and Amin Sharif to this distinguished list of writers as critics. And it was obviously for the editors, long before it reached a stage of completion sufficient for a book, a labor of love.

If youre smart and a hard worker, but your parents arent rich, youre now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York. This radical shift did not happen by accident. Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite. It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers. It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed reforms installed after the collapse of 2008. Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite.

Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimesthere is no other wordcommitted in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis. And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.Read Chapter 1

This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label ‘trafficked’ does not accurately describe migrants’ lives and that the ‘rescue industry’ serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice.

“Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality.”Lisa Adkins, University of London

Before there was money, there was debt. Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systemsto relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? Theres not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goodsthat is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors. Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like guilt, sin, and redemption) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong.

American democracy is informed by the 18th centurys most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. Weve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economicsthe cutting-edge ideas of todaygenerate these simple but revolutionary ideas: The economy is not an efficient machine.

Its an effective garden that need tending. Freedom is responsibility. Government should be about the big what and the little how. True self interest is mutual interest. Were all better off when were all better off. The model of citizenship depends on contagious behavior, hence positive behavior begets positive behavior.